Sleeping pill problem is 'rife' in English football as stars reveal details of addiction

Martin Macdonald

• 31 Jan 2026 01:30 CST
• 8 min read

Analysis

Recently, several football stars have spoken about an addiction to sleeping pills.

The life of a professional footballer can be hectic, with a work schedule unlike any other working person. They play and train at different times of the day and often travel by bus or plane to away matches both domestically and in European competitions, while they can be called upon to play and perform on any day of the week depending on the football calendar.

Their diet is regimented and their sleep schedule is meant to be, too.

But, professionals often find it difficult to sleep, whether it be due to a diagnosed disease like insomnia or simply remaining awake well into the night due to adrenaline flowing through the veins if they've played a match just a few hours before.

League Two star Omar Bogle is the latest to speak about how he became addicted to sleeping pills and it all started with an injured as a fractured back left him in what he describes as the worst pain he has ever felt.

“I had a six-month period when it was just crazy, my usage was ridiculous. I was completely blacked out, I’d wake up and I wouldn’t even remember the conversations that I’d had with people the night before," he told The Athletic.

'I would be on the phone to people and saying all kinds of madness, having crazy conversations. The next morning, I wouldn’t remember that I even spoke to that person, never mind the conversation that we had.

“But then it becomes about the feeling that it gives you. They make you feel euphoric, make you relax and all the rest of it. You get addicted to the feeling then. That’s what it was for me. You become numb, you don’t really think about much, you don’t feel anything.”

In January of 2025, things became extremely serious for the Crewe Alexandra player as he was taking up to 19 pills a night after smaller doses started to lose their effect.

“They basically got to a stage where, no matter how much I was taking, they would knock me out for three or four hours and then you’d wake up," Bogle explained.

“No one knew the extent of what I was doing. I never told anyone I was popping 18 or 19 of the things in the night. I never told that to anyone because I knew that would ring alarm bells. I wasn’t getting it from a doctor, I was outsourcing it (10mg zopiclone tablets).

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“I already had my own demons and battles that I fight daily anyway, because of things that have happened in my life, things I go through. The drugs just amplified it. It made me not think, it made me not feel. I was in La La Land. They are your friend until they’re not your friend anymore. The come-downs were ridiculous. And obviously, because of my usage, because of how much I was taking, I was in a constant state of sedation all the time.”

Bogle says that the addiction started to impact all areas of his life - his relationships and his career suffered. It was an intervention from his manager Jake Speight that led to him entering rehab in July and by November he was back playing football.

Other stars speak out

Several other professional footballers have spoken about their addictions recently.

Former Tottenham star Dele Alli used to take sleeping pills to hide from past trauma as he was molested as a child.

“I would take them throughout the day, to just escape, sometimes from 11am if I’ve got the day off,” he told The Overlap.

“I would never take them if I’m playing, but I’d start early if I had the day off, just to escape from the reality. It started with a doctor — a doctor was giving (sleeping pills) to me to sleep, and then it turned into more than that.”

Jonjo Shelvey became addicted after living alone in Turkey.

"I went to Turkey for 18 months and lived by myself and it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," he told the Under The Cosh podcast.

"I ended up becoming addicted to sleeping tablets because I'd just got home from training and to pass time. I'd think, 'what am I going to do now?'

"I was in a city that was a Muslim-orientated city. There were like three restaurants. To pass time I'd just end up taking three or four sleeping tablets and I'd pass out until the next morning for training."

Current Arsenal midfielder Christian Norgaard started taking sleeping pills before away games while at Brondby as he feared a lack of sleep would impact his performance.

"I really clearly remember when it [first] happened," the Dane told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"It was before quite an important cup game in Denmark and the mind started going. I had a bad night's sleep and I brought those thoughts to the game and I was like, 'what if I don't play well now because I've slept bad?'.

"That became my thinking pattern before the next game, 'I need to sleep [well] before the game otherwise I'll be a disaster in the game'. So that's why you have to break those patterns up."

Sleeping pills 'rife' in football

Former professional footballer Ryan Creswell says the problem is bigger than most people realise.

“My honest opinion of sleeping tablets is when you very first have one, and it does what it says on the tin, then you think, ‘Wow’, I have just had eight hours solid sleep,” he told The Athletic.

“But it leaves an aftertaste in your mouth, an aftereffect of drowsiness. You come around from that because you’ve had such a good sleep.

“Sleeping tablets, you take one, go to sleep. You fast-forward six months, and you’re not just taking one, once a week to go to sleep, that’s the nature of addiction… it craves more of something that it thinks is good. So players take more.

“And the process of that is you go into blackout, you can still be awake, and you blackout, you are not in control of anything you’re doing.

“It’s a form of psychosis, really. And if you look at the side effects of what sleeping tablets do, it messes with your mind. You think you see things that you don’t, that you hear things that you can’t, it’s such a dangerous substance to put into your system.

“I hit rock bottom. It’s scary that medication is so easy to get in society, not just football. The usage of sleeping tablets is horrendous. Hundreds of players are in denial about the amount they have. The number of people I’ve spoken to, and when I do my talks and people who put their hands up, young professionals, it’s rife across the sport.

“I came to a point when it was one way or the other. That’s literally it, when you’re at the point of desperation, at complete and utter devastation. You lose yourself, your wife, your kids, your house, cars, jobs, the people you love around you. That state. Players are fearful of coming out and saying they are addicted to something because of the potential backlash.”